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Title: USING COTTON SLIVER DRAFT FORCE TO EVALUATE TEXTILE PROCESSING EFFICIENCY, PART I

Author
item McAlister Iii, David
item Bargeron Iii, Jefferson
item Godbey, Luther

Submitted to: Applied Engineering in Agriculture
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 5/1/2003
Publication Date: 6/1/2003
Citation: McAlister III, D.D., Bargeron III, J.D., Godbey, L.C. Using Cotton Sliver Draft Force to Evaluate Textile Processing Efficiency, Part I. Applied Engineering In Agriculture, Vol. 19 (6) pgs. 637-640.

Interpretive Summary: One purpose of this study was to revisit the previous work by Graham and Bragg and Graham and Taylor to verify the impact cotton fiber properties on measured drafting force of a different assembly of cotton fibers (slivers). Also, the impact that the drafting force for those slivers has on yarn quality and processing was of equal interest. The micronaire of the cottons was held constant for this study. Unlike what was demonstrated by Graham and Taylor, fiber length did not have a significant effect on drafting force. However, short fiber content did have a significant effect and is an indication of the distribution of fiber length in a assembly of fibers. Although measured yarn quality was not statistically different for each of the conditions in each of the three yarn counts, the trend in yarn quality follows with the significant differences in drafting force for slivers for each of those conditions. In addition, within this data set, it appears that it would be possible to predict processing waste and spinning efficiency from the bundle of fibers (sliver) with a high degree of confidence without having to physically process fibers into yarn and make those determinations after the fact. This work lays a foundation for further work to incorporate more fiber property variables including fiber surface properties like has been done in the synthetic fiber industry.

Technical Abstract: The fiber properties used to market cotton will explain about 70 percent of the resultant yarn strength after the fibers are spun. A sizeable portion of the unexplained variation appears to be related to the surface characteristics of the fibers. Unlike man-made fibers cotton fibers are highly individualistic. Therefore, studying the behavior of groups or assemblages of fibers is the preferred method. For yarn formation the assemblage of fibers needs to be parallel. The fiber parallelization is achieved by attenuating a mass of cotton. This process is referred to as drafting. The characteristic of the process being investigated is the force that is developed within a strand while it is drawn. This force is obviously a function of the surface characteristics of a cotton. The fibers must have some level of cohesion or a strand can not be formed. However, above this initial level, the quality of the strand or the sliver deteriorates as the drafting force increases. An important observation of this study is that it is not only the effective length of the fibers, but possibly more important the length distribution of the fibers that effect the tension developed during drafting. The more irregular the distribution, the higher the force observed, and the poorer the processing efficiency and resultant yarn quality.